Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your site into an automated web traffic generation machine using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do is publish content consistently to automatically start driving traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration phase of the traffic system. You will learn what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different, and how much work is required to make sure that when everything is fully configured, traffic will automatically start flowing just by consistently publishing content to your site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as their greatest challenge online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive on a global scale and are exploring every advantage they can to get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge competitive advantage. With an expertly configured website, your business has an immediate competitive advantage from the very start.
The Configuration Phase Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to understand the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take extra labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a little story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Things are humming along in the gizmo assembly line when everything comes to a sudden stop.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately heads towards the control box. After staring at the schematics for 3 minutes, the expert then takes out a teeny-weeny hammer from his utility belt and makes a very gentle tap near the left edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything starts working as before.
The plant manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Feeling furious, the manager picks up the phone and calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving web traffic to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor was able to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for having invested years developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your site?)
Although the solution to many challenges is often ridiculously easy once implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up and activated to get certain results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure in order to ensure that everything works as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. It’s not as easy as installing one or two plugins, clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many components including your web server, your website, and a number of third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas in more detail.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes. What we are talking about, is configuring settings in your server specifically for handling web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites or online services.
Integration With External Sites
The basic concept of adding external sites is that all content will get published from a central location (your site) and from there, it will get distributed automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external services into your setup, content with links pointing back to your site will be automatically syndicated to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your business will then be exposed to a new audience and new sources of traffic.
Some of the external sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your settings to help speed up the configuration process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts before configuring your WordPress site:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important information, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your Google Search Console account and entering site details, the account information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your up your account and entered your site details, tracking code can be added to all of your web pages in WordPress via a plugin used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site details are set up, use the account information with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated web traffic generation system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media pages and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need your social media accounts set up in order to integrate these with your traffic generation system.
Once you have set up and configured everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site.
You should have profiles set up with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can post your content to loads of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse website.
There are various solutions that can be incorporated into your own web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services section
By default, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically!)
Download A Comprehensive List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site!
Click the link below to download a comprehensive list of reliable and authoritative ping services for your WordPress site or blog:
Download A List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site
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Note: If you need help setting up the list of ping services on your site, we recommend using a professional web services provider. You can find professional WordPress service providers in our WordPress Services Directory.
Reading
This section affects how your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to notify various update services when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to blogs linked to from your posts, and to allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks). This can work for you, but it can also drive bad traffic in the form of SPAM comments …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your permalinks …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more visitors to your site
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your website is something you simply cannot ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets.
To learn more, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content easier for search engines to index …
(WP Plugins For SEO – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find, crawl and index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with members of their own online communities can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social features to your site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website using free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to specify which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress Traffic Theme Settings – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also give you built-in options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a free theme) can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic System Configuration – Other Sections
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
To learn more about how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website or blog, go here:
Tags & Post Categories
Post tags & post categories help search engines classify and index your website, which helps you get more traffic.
(WordPress post categories help search engines better organize and index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s tags and categories should be set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications discover more of your site’s content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although Google can index your site just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Configure Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching for your site type in the wrong URL or click on hyperlinks pointing to pages on your site that no longer exist, they are greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do to begin attracting traffic is publish content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process typically takes some website developers a long time to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of an tutorial series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business with a WordPress-driven website and proven web marketing methods.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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